


And Your Children's Children

by Azar



Category: Indiana Jones (1981 1984 1989 2008)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-20
Updated: 2010-04-20
Packaged: 2017-10-09 01:30:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azar/pseuds/Azar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When her grandfather is missing presumed dead in the jungles of South America, thirteen-year-old Carolina Jones sets out to find him...with a little help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Your Children's Children

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Medie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Uncomplicated](https://archiveofourown.org/works/64020) by [Medie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie). 



> Written for Medie on the occasion of her birthday--Happy Birthday, hon!--and featuring a very young version of her OC, Carolina Jones, granddaughter to Indy. The plot borrows heavily at points from the novel, The Adventures of Holly Hobbie by Richard Dubelman (don't judge by the title: it's actually quite good, though sadly out of print).

"I don't like this," the now-familiar Scots-Welsh drawl rumbled low in Carolina's ear. "I don't trust that man farther than I can throw him, and that wasn't very far when I was alive."

Thirteen-year-old Carolina Jones opened one drowsy eye and peered across the aisle of the bus to where their guide, Carlos Montoya, was sitting. He smiled beatifically back at her but something about that smile made Carolina shiver. If she'd been alone, who knew what Montoya might have tried? But alone or not, she still wouldn't have a choice: who else would agree to smuggle an old man and a young teenage girl without visas – and in the case of the former, without a current passport – across half of South America?

Under the guise of trying to shift to a more comfortable position, Carolina rubbed her legs together, relaxing when she felt the reassuring shape of the ankle holster for great-grandpa Henry's derringer on her left leg brush against her right. She would've preferred Grandpa's revolver, but it just wasn't possible to conceal one of those on her small body. She also tightened her grip on the backpack in her lap, which contained among other precious possessions her own passport, maps, and Grandpa's letters and diaries that she'd used to piece together what he'd been searching for when he disappeared. The familiar weight of the jade Maya pendant he'd given her hung comfortably against her ribcage, safely hidden beneath her shirt.

It was ironic that the only thing she wasn't terrified of losing was the passport.

"Do you hear me, girl?" her great-grandfather (or rather, his ghost) grumbled again. "I said I don't trust that man."

Sleepily, Carolina turned her head to face him. Henry Walton Jones Sr. sat in the seat beside her, looking very much as he did in most of Indy's pictures of him: wearing a tweed suit and silk bow-tie, with his scholarly spectacles, trim white beard and stern expression.

She yawned, letting her eyes drift closed again as if it were no big deal. "I know, Gramps. I don't trust him either. But how else are we gonna get to Indy?"

Henry Sr. harrumphed. She'd taken to calling him "Gramps" not just because "Great-Grandfather Jones" took way too long to say and Henry was her brother's name, but also because of the indignant reaction the nickname always elicited: it irritated him even more than 'Grandpa' did Indy. "Finding your grandfather is not your responsibility," he scolded sternly. "You should be home in New York with your family. You should be in school, not traveling across Mexico in such—" He snorted. "—ignominious company. Leave finding Junior to the police, the army. Your father, if you trust no one else."

Carolina opened her eyes all the way and glared defiantly at her great-grandfather, her voice catching in her throat. "I did leave it to them. They all gave up."

That stymied him, and for a moment his features knitted together in an expression she'd seen all too often on her own face in the mirror: worry. "If anything happens to you, he'll never let me hear the end of it," he grumbled half-heartedly.

"You won't let anything happen to me," she said with absolute conviction.

Truthfully, Carolina knew exactly how dangerous it was, what she was doing. She was scared out of her mind. But she couldn't accept – refused to accept – that her grandfather could be dead. She'd heard and loved his stories since she was young enough to understand speech; if Revolutionaries, wild animals, Nazis, Communists, booby-traps, idols, aliens, supernatural relics and a nuclear detonation couldn't kill him, how could the Guatemalan jungle?

Dad said his luck must've just run out, but Carolina didn't believe it. And when Great-grandpa Henry's ghost had appeared to her the night she'd snuck out to the museum at the university, determined to find something, anything that would lead her to the truth...well, that just proved it, didn't it? Guardian angels didn't appear to help people on quests that were destined to _fail_.

Gramps let out a soul-deep sigh. And considering he pretty much was all soul now – even if he'd resumed corporeal form to protect her – that was pretty deep. "We can't always control what happens to those we love, Carolina," he told her quietly. "Don't you think I'd have loved to see my Suzie grow big and strong and smart and spirited as you? Instead, it's only since I've reached this side that I've had the chance to know her at all. And the years after my Anna went ahead of me nearly cost me your grandfather. I'll do everything in my power to protect you: that I promise. But you've got to look after yourself, too, and make wise choices."

Carolina just sat there for a long moment, feeling scared and confused and mostly very far away from home. "What if..." she asked in a small voice, hopefully too quiet for Montoya to hear: "What if I found a way to get a message to someone? Tell them where we're going and ask them to send the police?"

He answered just as quietly. "I think that would be a very wise choice. We'll have to keep our eyes open for an opportunity, shan't we?"

Carolina nodded and let her eyes drift close again. She felt her great-grandfather's arm snake out to wrap around her shoulders, and snuggled closer too him. Dead or no, he was the safest and most familiar thing on this dingy bus crowded with strangers. "Gramps?"

A sigh. Funny, she'd always thought you had to be breathing to sigh. "Yes, Carolina?"

"Do you really think we'll find him?" she asked, uncertain for the first time since the journey had begun.

Henry Jones Sr. smiled and laid one hand protectively over hers. "I think if anyone could survive alone in that jungle for this long, and probably still manage to find a fabled lost Maya city at the end of it, it would be my son. And that if anyone can find him and bring him home, it's you."

Carolina squeezed his hand gratefully. "I'm scared," she admitted.

Gramps squeezed back. "Then it's a good thing your guardian angel is here to look out for you, isn't it?"

With that promise in mind, Carolina finally allowed herself to drift off into the first real sleep she'd gotten since they crossed the US border.

Her last conscious thought was, _We're coming, Grandpa._

**Author's Note:**

> End note: To give credit where credit is due (now that it won't spoil the story *g*), the concepts borrowed from The Adventures of Holly Hobbie are as follows: archaeologist lost in the jungle (father in the book), teenage girl goes searching for him with the help of a jade pendant he gave her and the ghost of an ancestor (in the book, the titular Holly Hobbie). The book actually predates the Indiana Jones series by about a year, but has so much in common with it thematically that I just couldn't resist this small fusion. :-) Call it a nod to both.


End file.
